Meaningless Words
by Peachysuffocation
Summary: A short monologue from the perspective of Andrew Detmer as he ponders his relationship with Steve Montgomery and how he feels.
It is immensely hard to put my words down. I sometimes feel as if my brain only produces words when I am not paying attention. When I come back to myself and I meet other people, my words are caught in my throat. I swallow syllables and vowels, hoping they'll fall into place when they come back up in a flurry of soft-spoken speech.

I have been told that I am gentle. My body is like glass, transparent and reflective in the smallest of ways, they look for me and only find themselves. I am a mirror maze of contradiction, I will always be in the dark and you will never find me. I will run off into the tangled trees you were always afraid of and I will bury myself beneath the meadows of flowers.

There is nothing poetic about the destruction of a human being. We are all looking for simple comfort, small dreams, better places but when you believe in the future, you do not venture out to find those things. You sit quietly and dream of them, hoping they will appear the day after tomorrow. Next month. Two years from now. Someday.

We are all stuck within ourselves, afraid to unleash the beauty that is buried inside. I fear that others will find my words and destroy them, I worry that their fingers will wrap around my verses and dig their fingernails into my voice. I worry that I will never speak again, I will be at the mercy of someone who can't understand that my words are closer to oddball lottery winnings than human empathy.

I pretend that I am not in love with you. You threaten to outshine me, you cast a shadow over my stumbling form and I almost break character. You think of me as someone different, but I know who I am. I will always be false alarms and you will always be the person who rescues me from myself.

You are brown skin and dark eyes and warm smiles. You are the only person who will not allow me to fall back into my fantasy, you are pulling me from storybook imagination; you are lying to me, but I swallow your words like I do my own.

No one ever taught me how to love. I've read all the books and studied all the poems, but it has never clicked in my mind. Intimacy is foreign for me but natural to you. We all grow up differently. You lived normally, with homemade bubble mix and bedtime stories. I slept with the light on because I was afraid the darkness would swallow my screams.

I ran off to made up lands, those that hold foggy mountains and miles upon miles of starry skies. I think of old houses when it rains, how it pours onto fragile glass windows and drips off onto the dead grass that September brings.

I remember myself when I see the ocean, how it crashes and retreats; I imagine myself being swept beneath the waves and finding another world, one with vibrant fish and tall, flooded castles where I look into slurred mirrors and see serenity.

I think of warm houses that are lit up by televisions and candles. I imagine myself in a balmy bedroom with my body covered up to my neck in chilly covers, fast asleep with the radio humming 20s tunes until the sun rises.

I am constantly running away from the presence. But you, with your derivational insecurities, are stable. I think of kissing you in the dark when my body is melting into the mattress and your hands are roaming my body. I think of the moonlight creeping into the room, I think of your laugh, I think of your teasing words and I swallow back my panic.

I am starting to think that you are becoming another fantasy. I have never been one for the present, but even those who live in the current time make their way into my dreams. You cannot invade my daydreams any longer, you do not belong in my heart.

You should be somewhere cold with someone hot. You will drink expensive liquor and get high off of someone else's lips. You will slide your old hoodie over your head and grin at them. You will not think of me, but I will be there. I will be the forgotten glasses kicked under your bed frame, I will be the words you used to dismiss me, I will be the subtle crack in your lover's voice.

Words are used carelessly because nobody cares to think of the meaning. You believe you understand, but you do not. You told me you loved me once, you were falling asleep, your voice was low and raspy over the phone, and I wondered if you meant it. I still do.

How do I make the words meaningless?


End file.
